Selgin on Bad and Good Deflation

A few weeks ago at the Adam Smith Institute[2] in the U.K., George Selgin discussed deflation – bad deflation, yes (think, for example, of the Great Contraction as identified by Friedman & Schwartz[3]) and good deflation (that is, deflation caused by productivity growth[4]). The important distinction that George emphasizes is, sadly, lost on most modern economists – a failure of economists that causes all manner of misinterpretation of the historical record and, hence, also promotes misinterpretation of current phenomena. (Corrected – thanks to Reuvain Borchardt – to rid the earlier version of a typo.)